Overnight Flooding At Memorial Hospital Impacting Services

NORTH CONWAY, NH – Operations at Memorial Hospital are being impacted after part of the building flooded overnight. According to Memorial Hospitals Vice President of Community Relations & Development Kathy Bennett, Memorial Hospital’s medical office building experienced flooding overnight impacting its computer data center resulting in interruptions to service across its organization today.

The water damage, caused by a frozen roof drain, backed up water into the Primary Care practice and into the Data Center which is on the lower level of the medical office building. North Conway Fire Department was called and they shut off water to the building as a precaution.

This has resulted in the loss of access to their electronic medical records system throughout the facility and to running water in the medical office building only, where Primary Care, Women’s Health, Diabetes, Pulmonary, Ophthalmology and Optician services are located.

In order to continue services where possible, care locations are being relocated to other practices within the hospital campus not impacted by the water damage. This will be done on a case by case basis as some appointments cannot take place without access to the electronic medical records. The operating room has cancelled today’s elective surgeries but they will be available for emergency surgeries as needed.

Without use of the electronic medical records system, Memorial will be utilizing what is down as “down time procedures,” a standard operating procedure that is utilized in instances such as this. It allows for continued medical care in the event of an emergency, but it does limit access to patient information such as previous lab or imaging results.

Memorial’s emergency room and walk in care center are open today as usual. Lab and Imaging services are also open. Patients receiving IV treatment including chemotherapy will not be affected. Outpatient Physical Therapy appointments will not be impacted as they are in a separate building and have a separate electronic health records system.

Flood recovery services have been called in to help repair the water damage. MaineHealth has assigned IS professionals from their regional teams to help restore and divert computer services.

Patients should anticipate some delay in processing due to down time procedures and an inability to reschedule appointments until the electronic medical records system is up and running again. Memorial Hospital thanks its community for its patience as it works to swiftly resolve the situation.